


What’s Orlesian for rubbish?

by Cuilchan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Presents, Fluff and Crack, Light-Hearted, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9002128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuilchan/pseuds/Cuilchan
Summary: Aveline and Donnic have invited everyone for a relaxed Christmas dinner but someone is missing. Guess who is late for last-minute present-wrapping? Guess who can’t wrap presents?Spoiler alert: it’s the same person. 
 
   “Newspapers.” Anders commented, underwhelmed. […]“To be fair, there’s probably some posh Orlesian word from it, like  decoupage   or I don’t know, what’s Orlesian for rubbish?”





	

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_  
_Let your heart be light_  
_From now on, our troubles will be out of sight_  
  


The music was humming softly in the background as the chatter of the guests filled Aveline Vallen’s living room. It wasn’t the sort of thing she usually did, but Aveline thought that it would be a nice idea to have everybody home for a friendly Christmas dinner. All of them had worked really hard in the past few months, and to just eat food and enjoy some wine would be good for a change. Donnic had been excited all day at the idea of having guests he could show some rare books to. His collection had much improved in the last few months; he had managed to find some old Tevinter poetry collection, which had even gotten Varric all eager and willing to have a look at it. Donnic was dancing around the room, cheese plate in one hand and red wine in the other, providing refills and stories stuffed with puns that even the craziest Christmas crackers wouldn’t know how to feel about.

“Has anybody heard anything from Hawke and Anders?” Aveline asked, taking a break from the turkey which was roasting really nicely in her kitchen.

“Mother Theresa is probably saving some poor endangered kitty.” Fenris commented sarcastically, taking a sip from his glass. “Or the car broke down on Hawke. Again.”

“Alright, I’ll give them a call.” Isabela announced, taking a seat on the couch. The phone was ringing fine, but nobody was picking it up. “Rude. Oh, come on guys!” She was almost going to hang up, when Hawke, at last, decided to answer the call. Muffled words came out of the receiver – probably Hawke had put a hand on the microphone. He always did that, thoughtless that everyone could still be able to hear him. 

_“– What am I going to tell her?_

_– Tell her we are on our way!”_

“You know I can hear you just fine, right?”

_“Yes! I mean, no. Okay, never mind that. Anders got off work late, so yeah… But we’re almost done, I swear.”_

“Please, don’t be too late? I’m starving. I’m going to get drunk on wine and stuffed with cheese! Oh, yeah, have you guys got more wine to bring here?”

_“Yep, we just got a few bottles from the shop before. We’ll see you in a bi---”_

Isabela heard a loud crash and an angry meow. She stared at the phone for a few seconds before bringing it back to her ear.

_“– OH NO, I’M SO SORRY SER POUNCE!  
– Okay, I need to check on that Bela. Talk to you later.”_

Isabela shook her head, not really able to help a laugh. It was always something with those two. _And then buildings spontaneously combusted._ She put her phone away.

“They’re on their way!”

***

Meanwhile, the Hawke-Anders household looked like it had just – barely – survived a Qunari war. Hawke had been ready to go for a while, rude Christmas jumper on as part of the tradition he shared with his family. This was the year of the two penguins all tangled up and _‘Tis the season to be mating’_ proudly written at the bottom.

“Anders, talk to me, what happened?” Hawke asked, shuffling towards the source of the noise.

“Nothing! Well, I knocked the two frames with the pictures we took in Antiva. We’ll have to change those.” Anders’ hair was a mess – more than usual – and he had ribbons everywhere on his jumper, some of which were actually half-chewed. Ser Pounce was looking at both of them, completely unamused.

“Are you alright?”

“Me? Of course! Can’t you see how fine and relaxed I look?? Come here and help me wrap these things. We fucking forgot to buy bags, I knew we were forgetting something, damn--”

“Anders, calm down.” Hawke grabbed Anders’ arm and shook it slightly. It was sticky with tape. “What do you mean help you? You know I can’t wrap presents for shit. That’s why I usually bake or have plainly rude trinkets that sale assistants wrap for me.”

“You didn’t get the penis keychains, did you?”

Hawke shrugged and grinned. “No, but I got one for myself. The one with sunflowers and a small crow.”

“Of course you did. Hawke! We’re late. Presents. Wrapping. I made plenty of socks and scarves this year, you know, since I took up knitting.”

“Yep, ‘cause you’re a hipster.” Hawke looked at the mess on the table: small squares of coloured paper, ridiculously short ribbons and several small balls of tape. Anders was now struggling with some socks in a piece of paper that was definitely too small for them. “Oh god. I think we should add--”

Anders pulled too sharply on the poor piece of paper, which tore perfectly in half.

“Damn it. Fuck this, fuck-- I think I’m going to cry.”

“Have you wrapped some of them already?”

Anders sniffed and started redoing his ponytail. “I did. Those ones.” he gestured to a pile of paper crumpled up in the most awkward shapes he had ever seen.

“Okay.” Hawke commented, in a suddenly high-pitched voice. “Put some ribbons on it. It will look nicer.”

“I was trying to,” Anders whined, gesturing to his jumper. “then Ser Pounce wanted to help me, which meant I had to chase him for half of the house and I only got _half_ of the roll back, which is now _half_ -chewed. It’s embarrassing really.”

Ser Pounce meowed loudly, almost offended by Anders’ insinuations.

“Stop denying it, you did it!”

The cat, nonplussed, wiggled his tail in response and headed to the kitchen. Anders and Hawke could hear the little crunches from the dry food and stared blankly at the pile of half-wrapped presents. Hawke’s phone started vibrating again. He huffed, and decided to ignore it for the time being.

“Right, we need to get this done and get out of here.” Hawke kissed Anders’ forehead. “I have an idea!”

Hawke ran for it, leaving Anders alone with the balls of tape and ugly wrappings. Not-so-reassuring noises followed; things were probably falling in the other room – Anders could just hear thuds – and there were some muffled curses too.

When Hawke came back, he was holding a bunch of old newspapers and a box of red, gold, and green bows. 

“Good news, I’ve found some bows. Bad news, we’re going to use some newspapers to wrap the presents.”

“Newspapers.” Anders commented, underwhelmed.

“Oh, everyone’s a critic! We’ll pretend it’s some hipster bullshit. To be fair, there’s probably some posh Orlesian word from it, like _decoupage_ or I don’t know, what’s Orlesian for rubbish?”

The scene just hit Anders hard. He couldn’t help it anymore and started laughing so much that he ended up rolling on the floor. Hawke was always pleased when Anders laughed, but pretended nonetheless this was a very serious matter.

“You’re wasting time,” Hawke chuckled, grabbing a few pages and wrapping the socks that Anders had neglected before.

“Be sure to use plenty of pages on politics for Fenris. Who should get the weather, I wonder?” Anders managed to say, still on the floor, holding his stomach and shaking with laughter.

“You’re such a dick” Hawke grinned, putting a red bow on the sorry packet.

***

“Ready.”

Hawke and Anders had managed to finish all the wrapping, as well as grab the salted caramel cookies that Hawke had made for everyone. Anders had to change his jumper, unable to get rid of all the tape that was on the last one. Aveline was probably going to murder them both, but the gifts they had prepared were actually pretty good, if you excluded the nightmarish wrapping. They were ready to go, at least.

“Wait!” Hawke said, rushing to the living room.

“What is it?”

Hawke came back, holding a golden bow in his hand. “Forgot this. It’s for the most beautiful present of them all.”

“I think you got all of them, what –”

Hawke stuck the bow on Anders’ nose and grinned. 

“Oh.” was the simple answer that Anders made at the realisation, before blushing so much he could feel his cheeks burning red. He pulled Hawke close for a kiss, inevitably squishing the bow between them.

***

“Oh my god, they’re alive!” Isabela said, getting the door.

One hour and twenty-three minutes later Hawke and Anders were standing at the door of Aveline’s house, after a waterfall of ignored texts and calls, and a rushed _‘On our way. For real this time’_ text that Anders had sent when they were in the car.

“We got the wine!” Hawke announced, charming as he would ever be, showing a bag full of bottles of red.

“If you showed up this late without the wine I wouldn’t have let you in.” Aveline commented, crossing her arms over her chest. “Where the hell have you been? I really hope my turkey didn’t dry up – you should really hope it didn’t!”

“I’m sorry but—well. It was my fault.” Anders shook his head, on top of which now lied the golden bow, stuck on his hair tie. “I was a bit late with the wrapping and – it looks rubbish, but I promise the presents are actually better. Merry Christmas everyone!”

Anders got the presents out of the bag, which caused a general laugh among the guests. They couldn't help but stare at the ugly packets, trying to figure out what it was that went _that_ wrong _that_ fast. 

“Oh, Blondie, I hope you used the sports pages on mine, I really wanted to catch up on the last game.” Varric chuckled, examining the ball of paper very carefully in his hands.

“You know that there is a shop just around the corner that sells cards and gift bags, right?” Isabela asked. “That’s what I did with mine anyway.”

Anders and Hawke exchanged a meaningful look, which everyone assumed was just confirming that they didn’t think about the little shop. At all. Hawke quickly recovered from it and tried for an impossible save.

“See, it’s just because we had heard of this new Orlesian practice: wrapping presents with newspaper. What was the name of it, Anders?

Anders nodded, circling Hawke’s waist with his arm.

“ _Ordures_. I think the word you’re looking for, love, is _ordures_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was busy myself with some last-minute ugly gift-wrapping (although Anders is unbeatable to be fair), so I thought I should definitely write something about it. Something nice and Christmassy to put a smile on a few faces. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Apologies for any mistakes/typos; English is not my first language.
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone!
> 
> Until next time ~


End file.
